maybe bc im older than these charas i find it overhyped. it has a pretty hackneyed premise...

Are you really criticizing because you think its overly popular lol. Does he need an incredibly special reason to fall in love with Yano? I thought it was a pretty believable enough reason to fall in love. The dudes been craving any sort of genuine connection and seeing someone living so earnestly and keep going despite having their own struggles too (contrasting to how Odajima was living) is plenty reason to develop an interest. Because that's the kinda thing he earned for too ykno

Of all things youre nitpicking why he's a good student?? It's like asking someone who likes to be neat, but why are you neat? that's just who they are lol

I think youre off on thinking theyre making everyone bad to lift the mc. Odajima is the one that gathers those kinds of ppl to him because of how he was living. It makes sense because he was kinda just going through the motions and playing this role and living superficially which brought superficial ppl to him.

The only thing I can agree on is it's pretty fast paced and could have used more development. Everything else just sounds like it didn't resonate with you personally tbh

im criticizing the fact that it's popularity doesnt equate to its quality. i heard that it was some sort of masterpiece in the comments but i was legitimately cringing at some points. even if i dont resonsate with its plot directions, i can still point out its unoriginality and contrive-ness to force mc to acknowledge his feelings. like i said, mc is someone who doesnt want to burden other people and would rather cry by himself than ask for help from friends of family (his family even sent him a box of food later, which showed that they did have the capacity to help him. is it shame that prevents him from asking?). i think it's a great characterization, and valid reason for ml to be intrigued, but i nitpicking that fact that this characterization is not explored much or substantiated. its not the same thing as being "neat". mc was hesitant to acknowledge his feelings for ml, a big part of it due to not adhering to "common sense" or "role model" behavior. what does adherence have anything to with his feelings? what would be the consequences if he fell for him? literally nothing. we can speculate that getting involve with ml would mean getting involve in situations that would risk his scholarship, but all we got was some sex scene as if that was the "prize", an more or less accepting mother, and a simple HEA. since this conflict was resolved so disappointingly easily, it led me to believe ml's whole dilemma simply derived from some adolescence excessive angst. his characterization is great, but if he didnt approach mc but rather watched him from afar (to avoid falling for him any further. or maybe scared of rejection ig) simply bc of his mother begging him to not turn out gay like his father, why did he do it so easily when they become roommates, even giving him a handjob and essentially saying he wanted to fuck him? his actions and his trauma arent in sync. did he wanted to be friends, or lovers? if he wanted to try to be friends, he shouldve tried harder to appear that way after he got the frrst chapter. how did he expect mc to react? if mc avoided him, that would've ruined his chance to be friends, much less lovers. did he hope mc wouldnt reject him? which would greenlight him to pursue him? in that case, it make sense that ml told him he wanted to fuck him, but also makes his watching and not daring to like mc feel so stupid. if mc took up that offer to be his fuck buddy, would ml refuse in the end and pretend it was a joke, bc of his mother's words, or would he do it, thereby ignoring his trauma and years of attempting to make himself straight via sleeping with girls. and if the latter happen, which is likely, how will he even broach the subject to his mother when he's not even talking to her? if ml was the type to do things impulsively in the heat of the moment, he should've just straight-up avoided him or distanced himself when they became roommates or after the first chapter. like he had been doing before.

i will concede that ml's reason for falling for mc doesnt have to be special since they are teenagers but that's about it. the story couldve been better with its execution, but their characterizations and growth in a vacuum was fine.

as the person who made the note that the ch1 scene can be interpreted as yano reacting to odajima without realising, you could have commented that on my post i don’t mind opposing views ^^ though it is just a possible interpretation posed by the fact that he clearly didn’t think of men as an option for him until after odajima started flirting with him, which this situation was the catalyst for. he could be gay, he could be bi! doesn’t really matter because the point is that he’s attracted to men and that scene kickstarted things for him coming into realising it, & i think it’s a little disingenuous to say nothing would change for him if odajima was a girl because the whole point of things is that he isn’t! this story couldn’t have played out the way it did were he one. the story direction couldn’t be the same at all.

i am biased as someone who does like the story, but i don’t think age has to do with it because i’m also a lot older than the characters lol, i think it’s just a matter of personal taste / preference in storytelling. and i do think some of these criticisms are already answered by the story itself. re: yano’s wanting to set a good example, it’s because he’s a poor scholarship student! the series hints pretty heavy at the class divide based on what odajima’s friends say, since it’s a high school w/ an affiliated middle school that’s considered quite affluent. students like yano who come from other schools - especially on scholarships like him - seem to be quite rare. so if he steps out of line at all he risks being kicked out, and if he’s kicked out he puts greater strain on his family he can’t afford to put on them both financially and mentally.

odajima also surrounds himself with self-absorbed people on purpose as part of his attempt to force himself Into Being Normal (in his eyes), so it’s less that yano is the only one out there at all with good values and moreso that odajima happened to hear him expressing his values at a time where he was at rock bottom, and that was enough to light a match in the depths of his heart. his mental state was genuinely Just That Bad due to his own self sabotage and the people he purposely surrounded himself with and a single kind comment he heard by coincidence was enough to pull him out of the depths.

(i do agree abt not being interested in the smut bc i generally do not like nsfw stories of underage charas At All, but in this case i treated it less like smth gratuitous and more like… how do i put this. kind of part of being a coming of age story? like more teen novel style necessity than a gratuitously inserted scene. exception to the issue even if i don’t personally like to see it because the story is essentially at its core about sex and specifically about odjima’s self harming through sex & so it ends with him being able to heal from that by embracing someone he actually likes and saying he’s glad he fell in love with him. etc etc)

sorry this is a long reply. i just have a lot to say about pittosporum.

sorry for coming back later to leave a second comment i just wanted to cover my bases & clarify that neither my comment abt the interpretation of yano reacting to odajima (which i had just figured was abt my last topic about the series since im the only one afaik who’s brought that up in post), nor the rest of my last reply, was meant to be read as passive aggressive or overly serious because i realised due to how tone comes across online & upon rereading my entire post it could very much be read as such. my reply was all in sincere lighthearted good fun bc i just like media/literary analysis and pittosporum is ultimately a personal fav of mine so it gives me a lot to ramble about. (๑•ㅂ•)و✧ just wanted to clarify! carry on

Sorry I have an incredibly hard time reading this because there's no spacing.

Setting yourself up with expectations of a masterpiece based on popularity sounds like a you problem lol.

What exactly makes you cringe? I'm curious. Please explain cus no, I don't understand how Yano falling for Odajima was contrived at all.

It sounds like you're finding fault in characters cus theyre not acting how you want them to act. The point is that theyre flawed characters, you cant expect a kid with trauma who's been acting a role all his life and burying his real self for ages to be making sense and reasonable with everything he does

dont worry ur comment is fine; as someone who argues pretty aggresively, i didnt take offense to ur comment or ur tone. i get that if ml was female, then they wouldnt be roomates in the first place and and ml wouldnt be angsty, but i moreso meant the process of ml seducing him and mc falling for him. in my second comment, both characterizations are actually good, but my issues are smth else. long spiel alert:

to clarify again, reiterating my second comment, is that there is no actual correlation to mc's need to act like a role model to not lose his scholarship (which i already know the reason to) and his feelings for the ml. why did it take so long for mc to acknowledge his feelings for ml? we could say it's bc it was his first time falling in love and he wanted to be careful not to screw up his scholarship, but when we got to that scene where he basically went "screw common sense/being like a good student", which i took from that essentially him willing to face the consequences of not conforming to his conventionally planned life for ml. as shown in the confession scene, it was a huge step for him. but in the end, all the rising tension fell flat as it wasnt a big deal; all of mc's worries didnt come to fruit. there couldve been a mention about the potential of homophobia/resistance (from friends, family, society, etc) which would substantiate mc worries and cement the reason he took a while to acknowledge his feelings, but the mom was more or less accepting, and that was it. the lack of it indicates gay relationships isnt a big deal in the world, but it kinda was (for ml at least. for the mom, it was from the dad cheating, so i wouldnt call her homophobic). once mc confess and they got together, everything was wrapped up neatly. if there was a scene later that addressed that mc's worries was unfounded, that his relationship with ml isnt a stigma to his "role model" behavior but rather readily accepted by friends and family, then this criticism would be void.

another thing is ml's actions conflicting with his characterization which i talked about in my second comment. specifically, ml's actions in chaper 1 and 2. mc is immediately greeted with the sight of ml with a girl in his dorm and a frivolous greeting. ml gives him a handjob and basically declares in ch 2 that he wanted to fuck mc. ok, makes sense given ml is a playboy, but it doesnt make sense when we're told ml basically fell for him a while back and made no moves to approach him and only watched him from afar bc of his mom's words and his fear of being gay (and maybe he believed it would a be fruitless love). like all his resolve went out the window bc they happened to be roommates? if his mom's words actually had such hold over him, then he shouldve tried to be distant and appear nonchalant (which ig the first scene of him arguably did). a counterargument could be that ml was unable to hold back from touching mc, and when mc didnt express any visible disgust, he took it as a greenlight to pursue him. but this circles back to my point: ml spent years trying to turn straight or self-harm by sleeping with girls, even when mc's words resonated with him, he still didnt change his ways, which shows how deep-rooted this fear was; but if all it took was mc not explicitly rejecting him, was his trauma all that serious in the first place? how was he going to broach this subject to his mom if he managed to pursue mc successfully? again, my point can be countered that he did those out of impulse, which would explain why he never dared to approach mc and just watched him, but that would mean he was self-aware, and if so, then he should've tried harder to distance himself from mc. and given the ending that there was no actual bad consequences of being with mc, then how does their fears/reservations hold weight in the narrative other than "for drama and angst ofc".

the story doesnt have to a Pulitzer winning work, but if their behavior is simply excused by their being teenagers without direct acknowledgment from the work, then imo it's fair game for criticism.

eh i wasnt actually expecting it to be a masterpiece, cuz most stories that i read with these kind of comments fall short of that. it's not specifically in itself Yano(ml i assume cuz i dont remember their names) falling for mc that was contrived, although cliche, but rather the process. cringe was the wrong word here cuz i actually grimaced, but in that regard, im also talking about the layout and paneling (when mc was talking to ml's mom and she was begging him to help ml; the confession scene) which was to reflect mc's state of mind but it felt jarring imo and took away from that scene (kinda like the visual equivalent of purple prose), and the story using cliche methods to propel the plot (like yano's notebook felt very random, the extras randomly talking in the background) to make mc confess. if he didnt see that notebook, how much longer would he just meander around? it was clearly an ex deus machina, since there was no longer any other plot lines to use to facilitate their relationship.

if a reader needs to excuse the leads' irrational, immature, and inconsistent behavior with their being teenagers and hormonal (uhm ml legit was having a threesome) therefore flawed, without direct acknowledgment from the work, then it's not a me problem but author's writing ability. i will concede that ml blurting out that he wanted to fuck mc in ch 2 and the ml's fight with his ex-friends is reasonable for teenagers, but my other criticism remains. anyhow, i expanded a bit more on the comment to crzlove, and im too lazy to copy and paste, so look there if u still want to argue.

adding to the last sentence of my first paragraph cuz i just remembered, talking to friends/family will simultaenously show his growth as someone more willing to rely on others when he has some struggles. like his friends had asked about his wellbeing twice(?), and he never says anything, bc it was his private matter sure, but literally one of his character traits is that he always endured his burdens alone and didnt want burden others, even when his friends/family care about him and would be willing to help him. if he is willing to step out of his comort zone for ml, this should extend towards them as well and really cement his growth.